Regarding the letter titled "What Do We Want Police to Do?" The answer is: solve crimes. The John Howard Society of Canada has stated that being "tough on crime" is the […]
Regarding the letter titled "What Do We Want Police to Do?" The answer is: solve crimes.
The John Howard Society of Canada has stated that being "tough on crime" is the wrong approach. It points to the courts already being overwhelmed. In 2021, there were 2 million criminal incidents reported in Canada, of which 350,000 went to trial. The system was overloaded with that. Also, only about 30% of crimes are reported, meaning that upwards of 6 million criminal incidents occured that year. Smashing down on the populace is not the way to move forward.
The part of the criminal justice system where police are supposed to be good at their jobs is solving crimes, but even that is only about a 1-in-3 proposition at best.
The City of St. Thomas has the right idea. Creating supportive housing, affordable housing, and other methods of providing dignity to homeless people, along with other members of the general public, has significantly reduced crime. Even the reports of crime have dropped precipitously.
The idea is to alleviate the reasons for having to commit crimes in the first place rather than spending lots of money chasing and attempting to punish criminals after the fact. Recently, the police in Sarnia wanted an asinine $91 million to build what amounted to Fort Apache, The Bronx. Imagine, instead, if that $91 million went into supportive infrastructure and programs to house the homeless, feed, the hungry, and cure the sick. Crime would likely go down here the same way it's gone down in St. Thomas because the need for criminality to survive would be gone.
References:
https://johnhoward.ca/blog/tough-on-crime-is-the-wrong-approach/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-police-arent-good-at-solving-crimes_n_5ee7b4fbc5b614b68adec9b1
https://www.thesarniajournal.ca/news/supportive-housing-will-it-work-in-sarnia-11229220
